Some embodiments described herein relate generally to methods and apparatus for analyzing the quality and/or accuracy of geographical coordinates. More specifically, some embodiments described herein relate to detecting spoofed geographical coordinates.
Many mobile communication devices are Global Positioning System (GPS) capable devices and are operable to determine their location with a very high degree of accuracy. Furthermore, many communication networks, including cellular telephone networks, are operable to determine the location of mobile communication devices within their networks with a high degree of accuracy, for example based on antenna location and signal strength data. Such location data can be useful to many remote service providers including activity tracking services, traffic monitoring services, social networking services, location providers, advertisers, etc.
Location data associated with mobile communication devices, however, frequently pass through third parties, such as application (app) providers, the network carrier, or others, who may alter or supplement the location data. For example, some third parties may generalize or alter location data in an effort to protect user privacy. Other third parties may infer a location of a mobile location device based on relatively low-accuracy proxies, such as Internet Protocol (IP) address, or area code. Because location data associated with mobile phones can be valuable to service and content providers, some third parties may append location data to traffic without having any basis for the appended location data.
In known systems, service providers who obtain location data have been unable to determine whether intermediate third parties have altered or supplemented the location data. A need therefore exists for methods and apparatus for evaluating location data, detecting spoofed location data, and/or assigning accuracy scores to location data.